As in many other ways, Switzerland proves to be a real paradise for aficionados of contemporary art and culture. A vast range of attractions such as museums and galleries as well as festivals of music, theatre and literature are concentrated within a very small area. Visitors can admire numerous outstanding examples of architecture or historic locations where important artists worked. On a journey through the Swiss artistic and cultural scene, you will encounter names such as Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Le Corbusier, Ferdinand Hodler and Alberto Giacometti – as well as some names that have achieved more recent renown such as Pipilotti Rist, George Gruntz, Andreas Vollenweider, Bruno Ganz and Marc Forster, to mention only a few.

Switzerland is home to more visual artists than virtually any other country of comparable size. If we are to believe the relevant ranking lists such as the Art Barometer, Switzerland numbers among the world’s leading countries as far as art is concerned. Veterans such as Dieter Roth and Jean Tinguely certainly play their part in this achievement. More recent representatives who are also known internationally include the Fischli/Weiss duo, Pipilotti Rist, Roman Signer, Ugo Rondinone, Olaf Breuning, Urs Fischer, John Armleder, Olivier Mosset, Jean-Fréderic Schnyder, Franz Gertsch, Helmut Federle, Fabrice Gygi and Thomas Hirschhorn.

Works by Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber- Arp from 1917 onwards, and planar compositions by Paul Klee and Johannes Itten marked the start of constructive art in Switzerland. During the Second World War, Switzerland ultimately became a kind of European refuge for avant-garde constructivists, centering on figures such as Max Bill and Richard Paul Lohse. While the end of the war found Europe distancing itself from everything that existed in the pre-war era, the constructivist movement continued to flourish in Switzerland. Its strictly mathematical thinking exerted a particular influence on design and graphic art, with a corresponding impact on Switzerland’s image abroad.

The 1950s saw the emergence of the first exponents of iron sculpture – an art form that is still regarded as typically Swiss today. Outstanding representatives of this genre at international level include Robert Müller, followed also by Jean Tinguely and Bernehard Luginbül as well as Daniel Spoerri and Dieter Roth.

Towards the end of the 1950s, when works by “concrete” artists such as Cuno Amiet, Max Gubler and Ernst Morgenthaler were still regarded as genuine modernist art, young artists such as Franz Fedier, Rolf Iseli and Matias Spescha represented this country at the Biennales – with their art which was, in the broadest sense, informal. Switzerland caught up with the rest of Europe again. The pop-art phenomenon then emerged in Switzerland too – albeit very briefly. For artists such as Franz Gertsch, Markus Raetz, Max Matter and Urs Lüthi, the engagement with pop was particularly important at the start of their careers.

A specifically Swiss trend emerged in the early 1970s in the form of a strong interest in inner worlds, minor masterpieces and drawing – artists shied away from largescale gestures. Well-known artists who created small, meditative pencil drawings include Ilse Weber, Markus Raetz and Hugo Suter.